State budget reveals local aid winners and losers

Next year’s budget highlights the winners and losers in terms of local aid for fiscal 2015.

With Gov. Deval Patrick signing the state’s budget for fiscal 2015, the winners and losers have been set in terms of local aid for next year.

Local aid, the money allocated to cities and towns for public services, can generally be broken down into three categories: general local aid, Chapter 70 education aid and categorical local aid.

General local aid is the money provided to cities and towns for government services. Cities and towns generally have broad discretion in choosing how to use general aid to supplement their own budgets.

Chapter 70 aid is the largest portion of local aid, and it is distributed to each individual school district. This funding is limited to education spending.

Categorical local aid is funding tied to specific uses, such as libraries and veterans services.